A21 widening may be hit by spending cuts

At last, a silver lining in the spending cuts! Road chiefs are worried about their road building programme including the funding for the A21 widening. Spending £125m to destroy an ancient woodland for the sake of the car is plainly ridiculous but bizarrely our leaders can't see this.

Kent Greens have been fighting the road expansion of the A21. This is the comment from Hazel Dawe: "The A21 dualling scheme would require additional land including good quality arable farmland and ancient woodlands. There are no circumstances under which we would support the allocation of these two types of land to new trunk road building or widening anywhere in Kent. "

Stop Gallaghers destroying 74 acres of ancient woodland in Maidstone

Gallaghers are applying for permission to open a 74 acre quarry on the site of Oaken Wood, an ancient woodland with a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Local Wilflife Site in it. Gallaghers say that they will refill the quarry and plan new woodland on top once they have removed milllions of tonnes of stone for road and housebuilding.

This is simply crazy. There are much better alternatives to the use of Kentish Rag Stone to build houses with. While Rag Stone looks pretty, the impact on the enviroment and the fact that this resource is not renewable makes this exercise a pointless waste of time that will simply increase the profits for the company. Let's use carbon negative building materials such as hemp blocks for new houses.

And as for destroying an ancient woodland so that there can be aggregate to build more roads with...

A facebook page has started and I urge people to join it.

Green ructions on the A21

The Tories have nailed their colours to the mast this week attacking the Green defence of ancient woodland over road building in Pembury. Last week's front page headline in the Kent on Sunday was full of vitriol from Tory MPs incessant about the Green Party's concern for the environment over a road widening scheme. This week, more Tories have waded in concerned that Kent Greens will throw a spanner in the works of insanity and environmental destruction. Well done Hazel!!!

North Kent is not to be missed out in the recent Tory plans for more roads, more emissions, more pollution, more waste, less society, less planet, and less environment. Paul Carter, Tory leader of KCC, has announced his plans for a third Thames Crossing, this one from east of Gravesend to Tilbury, as there are too many cars trying to get through the Dartford crossing.

I think we need to borrow Hazel's toolbox for another environmental spanner to throw into the works.

Two fingers to the climate and the future

There's so much going on and I have hardly has a chance to read emails, let alone blog anything much, so apologies...

Firstly, rail fares are rising way above inflation in the South East. This is appalling news, rail usage is rising and investment is urgently needed, but increasing fares is not the way to do it. When the government wants to build roads it talks about new investment in the infrastructure, but when it comes to our railways it talks about subsidies and privatises it. We need government investment in the railways and we need a public railway service.

The Conservatives are champing at the bit about expanding airports in Kent, they just can't agree which airport to expand. Vote Blue Get Green? I don't think so. 350 ppm is now felt to be the maximum safe level of CO2, yet we are now around 380. Urgent and radical action is needed, not building more airports and roads (a position that the grey parties, Tories, Labour and LibDems, are guilty of calling for).

The sea ice loss at the North Pole continues to break records: "if we look at the total extent of ice lost between the March maximum and the September minimum, 2008 set a new record for total ice loss over an entire melt season."

The New Scientist reports that in this year's hurricane season, "the total energy carried by storms this year is double that of last year."

The number of climate related problems just keeps on rising. We have already exceeded the safe levels of CO2 and yet the grey parties are continuing with business as usual. Sure there are some good individuals around, but politics is about policies, not the rhetoric of individuals.

KM letter on hypocrisy

Letter in this week's Kent Messenger:

Dear Editor,

In last weeks letters page, former LibDem council leader Mick Stevens stated that the public no longer trust politicians, citing conflicting conservative opinion on migrant workers (KM 12 Sep). However in the same week, the Lib Dems were berating the Tories for abandoning election promises for a park and ride in south Maidstone, while being responsible for closing the nearby South Park park and ride just last year.

It also seems that the Tories want to plough the money into road building in Maidstone, putting the All Saints Link Road and Leeds / Langley Bypass back on track rather than supporting people to leave their cars at home. Building more roads at the expense of public transport is contradictory to trying to encourage people to be 'In Town Without Your Car'.

Perhaps hypocrisy is another reason that the public have stopped trusting politicians? Fortunately we still have some excellent role models such as those fantastic year 5 pupils from East Borough!

--
Stuart Jeffery
Green Party Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Maidstone and the Weald